FRENCH President Emmanuel Marcon’s plan to make Paris a tech hub has been snubbed by a CEO who revealed his company would move to London instead.

The French President, who is scheduled to meet with Prime Minster Theresa May on Thursday, has been dealt a huge blow as the CEO of Dimension Data, Jason Goodall, said he did not even consider Paris as an option for the base of his company’s headquarters.

Speaking to CNBC, Goodall revealed London was his top choice for his tech hub despite Brexit.

He said: “It was very important for us to be close to our clients, very important for us to have access to the best talent from a technology perspective.

“London ticked both those boxes so we’re very excited to be investing in London and to have a strategic hub in London with a lot of our executive team now based here.”

CNBC•GETTY

Brexit news: Goodall revealed his company had not considered Paris as an option

We’re very excited to be investing in London

Jason Goodall

Asked whether he had considered President Emmanuel Macron’s global tech hub in Paris, Goodall said he had not.

He said: “Not really, so we have a local operation in Paris and in France obviously so it’s an important market for us.

“But from a global perspective , the UK is very easy place to live.

“From Heathrow you can get to 180 cities around the world, the time zone works.

“In one of the examples that I used, when we moved executives from around the world, we moved executives from Hong Kong, executives from Europe from South Africa.

“Very very easy to attract executives to live in London, people want to live here.

“So although Paris and France is an important market for us, from a global head office perspective, London just suited our purposes better.”

At the VivaTech Conference in Paris in June, President Macron said: “I want this country to become a country of unicorns [private companies valued at more than $1bn].”